In recent years, marvelous advance in internet enables English to hold a dominant position as universal language. Therefore, it is inevitable to use English in daily life. English is a kind of ideogram, in which 26 alphabet characters are combined to make meaningful words. A standard computer keyboard is widely being used as a representative character input apparatus. In a computer keyboard for inputting English Alphabet, each of 26 alphabets is allocated to each key. Therefore, when keys of alphabets corresponding to the order of a word are pressed, the alphabets are displayed according to the order by a simple program. However, the keyboard occupies a considerable space and is limited in movability due to keys corresponding to 26 alphabets.
With rapid advance in electric and electronic technologies, various electronic equipments such as mobile phones adopting CDMA, PCS, TDMA, GSM, AMPS, and IMT-2000, a PDA, a pager, a small-sized game machine, a remote controller, a camera, and home electronic appliances trench toward small-sized and high-tech. As functions of the electronic equipment have been improved while trending toward small-sized and desire for imputing characters to the electronic equipment have been increased, a necessity for inputting characters is continuously increasing.
A conventional computer keyboard is not applicable to electronic equipments whose buttons (keys) must be limited in number. Therefore, there has been used a method (apparatus) in which two or three alphabets are allocated to one key and one alphabet is decided in response to the times of pressing a specific key within a predetermined time.
A conventional cell phone keypad 10 for inputting alphabets is illustrated in FIG. 1. The keypad 10 has nine keys to which two or three alphabets are allocated respectively. That is, alphabets Q and Z are allocated to a key 1; alphabets A, B, and C are allocated to a key 2; alphabets D, E, and F are allocated to a key 3; alphabets G, H, and I are allocated to a key 4; alphabets J, K, and L are allocated to a key 5, alphabets M, N, and O are allocated to a key 6; alphabets P, R, and S are allocated to a key 7; alphabets T, U, and V are allocated to a key 8; and alphabets W, X, and Y are allocated to a key 9.
For example, if a user wants to input the alphabet A, he/she presses the key 2 once. If the user wants to input the alphabet B, he/she presses the key 2 twice. If the user wants to input the alphabet C, he/she presses the key 2 three times. To successively input alphabets allocated to the same key, the user must press a function key such as, for example, a key 0 between input-desire alphabets. That is, to successively input the alphabets A and B, the user presses the key 2 once to input the alphabet A and then presses the function key 0 to move a position. Finally, the user successively presses the key 2 to input the alphabet C.
For example, in a case where a user wants to input a word “CLING”, he/she successively presses the key 2 three times to input the alphabet C and then successively presses the key 5 three times to input the alphabet L. Thereafter, he/she successively presses the key 4 three times to input the alphabet I and then successively presses the key 6 twice to input the alphabet N. Finally, he/she presses the key 4 once to input the alphabet G.
However, there is no relationship between alphabets allocated to one key and there is no logicality between a specific alphabet and the times of pressing a key for the specific alphabet. Therefore, a user must know where a desired alphabet is allocated, how many press a key for the desired alphabet, and whether the desired alphabet is correctly inputted. As a result, the user must concentrate his/her attention to use of the foregoing alphabet input apparatus. Further, the user encounters inconvenience of pressing a lot of keys and increase in time so as to input an alphabet.
Thus, a feature of the present invention is to provide alphabet input apparatus and method for inputting all alphabets with the similar manner to a handwriting manner.